In Idioms^x, Prepositions^x

Hello Paco and Roro I hope you don't mind if I take a few steps back. I was struck by this passage on the Yates and Kenkel 'We're Prescriptivists. Isn't Everyone?' page: For example, one of the most notorious prescriptions is never to end sentences with a preposition. This style was given the...

1. Sorry, I cannot think of an idiom with a compound preposition + 'peace', Yogi. All that comes to mind is 'not at peace (with oneself)'. 2. Yes, you can, but it sounds overly formal-- like my broker lecturing me.

Hello, abbie. Your example, "For the umpteenth time, will you please get off the phone!" was not familiar to me. Would you please help me? Can I put it in other words: (There are many idioms such as this ... basic verb+preposition... and sometimes I get at a loss to understand its meaning. I...

Ah ha! MTL - a scientist! Now we've got problems Language has its rules and regulations, but it is not so precise a discipline as science. Sometimes there is just no logical explanation. As you say, somethings just don't sound right! Although we have lots of grammar rules etc in any...

A 'glossary' is a an alphabetical list of the words or phrases in a text that are difficult to understand. The meanings are also given. 'Faulty diction' simply means using an incorrect word, whether in speech or writing: This definition is from UCFV English dept. web...

The BBI is my Favourite (capital F). It doesn't list all the prepositions but it is extremely useful for ESL speakers because it tells you how to combine nouns with adjectives and how verbs are used (it gives 19 valency categories of verbs). It also gives the most common word combinations, as...

See. I'd rather have something that covered everything, but I guess it would be almost impossible to find such a dictionary? I do have problems with prepositions sometimes, so maybe the BBI wouldn't be such a bad choice.

Mr. P., Could you reconsider whether the "for" in "I was worth X-ing for" is a required element of the idiom? I've been reading this thread with interest, and it occurs to me that the "for" is an artifact of the verb choice for X, not part of the idiom itself. The "for" may go with the verb it...

Hi, I feel that the word "on" sometimes has meaning of "using". For example, in the following sentence, "Join Us On the Radio Tonight" You don't mean that "join us on the surface of the radio, tonight", do you? At least to me, I don't think it is what it means. In some dictionaries, they...

A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and an adverb or preposition, for example `shut up' or `look after', which together have a particular meaning. An idiom is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one they would have if you took the meaning of each...